The blog of the design, construction, and launching of the vessels "The Floating Empire" and "Tesla's Revenge", both floating tinyhomes made from recycled or repurposed materials.

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Friday, October 3, 2014

Changes to the Plans

As we gear up to publish construction plans for you good people, I thought I'd take a moment and tell you where the published plans are going to differ from the Floating Empire as we actually built her.

Overhang:
In the original conception of the vessel, there was to be at least a 1' overhang of the roofline all round. This was dropped during construction as it saved time and materials. The overhang, however, would have saved us a lot of the grief we've had trying to get the windows properly sealed, etc. etc. So in your new version of the plans, the overhang is back and better than ever.

Narrower hull:
In consideration of Morgainne's studio space, we opted for a wider hull, which made it impossible for us to easily use standard 8' plywood and dimensional lumber. The result was that we spent a LOT more time and money to wind up with what amounted to about an additional 14" of space. The release plans will make as much use of standard lumber lengths as is possible.

Variable Length:
Since not everyone needs an art studio aboard, we'll be releasing plans for a shorter, easily expandable vessel, ranging from 20'-30'

Additional Floatation:
While we're floating, and upright even, we've felt since launch that the floatation we used put too much weight on each cell. The new version will have three rows of floats, not two. This minor increase in expense means you will have much greater flexibility in internal layout and fewer worries about weight and loading.

We'll also be doing improvements and simplifications of things that are working really well on the boat, along with lists of potential sources for inexpensive materials.

So how about it? What else would you like to see included? Cooking recipes? Pet doors? Giant Squid repellent? Please let us know in the comments below.